Cannes Film Festival opens

We went to Cannes yesterday, because we're writing a story about terrorism, and the Festival's opening would be the ideal multiplier of terrorism's effect: one Brad Pitt is worth thousands, if not millions of other innocent victims, you'll agree. We're not sure we'll have an actual blast in the story, so here's one from the Pulitzer-winning last novel of Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch:

[hang on; under development]

The opening has always been on a Tuesday, because the festival has always lasted for 12 days, the festival competition always featured 22 films, two per day, with the last day, a Sunday, dedicated to the awards ceremony.

So it's Tuesday, May 10, and we leave the house at 15:30  to arrive at the red carpet event at 17:00. 

German for beginners

Reality beats fiction...

...as usual.

And here's just one line from Politico:

Cruz woke up on the morning of the Indiana primary to rain and the news that Trump was touting a National Enquirer story that claimed, without evidence, that his father was involved in John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

This morning

Chang took this picture yesterday; we learned from our neighbor Dirk, who's a retired airline pilot, how this works: pilots call this phenomenon a "drop,"---a drop, if you will, of cold air that descends from the mountains and then drops through warmer air onto the warmer sea where it can trigger a middling thunderstorm, which this one did.

May 1

Alessio Slonimsky

At last (Glenn)

This is beautifully scripted, especially the final scene:

And our fragment? From the last chapter of the GREEN EYES, of course, we're a few hundred words short of the ending. Hint: John, the narrator, is in love with Alex.


We’re still walking down the beach. The alpha-dog picks up a pebble, sends it off with a flip of his hand across the water, where it obliges, naturally, re-bouncing, travel-ing along the ocean surface till it reaches the end of the world.

“So, John, let’s reset. You wouldn’t want me to love you because Alice told me to do so?”
“No.”
“And you wouldn’t want me to love you because it would hurt you too much if I don’t?”
“Huh?”
“Let’s simplify. Would you love somebody because he loves you?”
“Possibly not.”
“Would you love somebody because he brought you back from the dead?”
“Amy-Lou brought you back from the dead.”
“She said you did.”
“She did. She performed the CPR.”
“She said it was your kiss. You kissed me back to life.”
“I didn’t kiss you back to life. I planted a kiss on your forehead to say goodbye. You were dead then.”
“So, I’m right then.”
“How?”
“You didn’t kiss me back to life, Amy-Lou didn’t bring me back from the dead. Q-E-D. I’m in heaven. Everything is heaven. Even you are heaven, not cheating on me de-spite the challenging circumstances of an out-call.”
“And so are Amy-Lou, and Alice. According to your logic.” 
“Who didn’t cheat on me either.” 
“You know what I mean. Why should you love me?”
“Because, John, you are unique among us angels. You are the only angel who needs my love. Who wants it. Why shouldn’t I love you back? We’re in heaven together. Wishes are fulfilled in here.” 
“I didn’t know.”
“Now you do,” he says and rolls his head again. 


He halts his steps. No, he stops. It’s in between. We’ve arrived at the gay beach.  He turns sideways, we're facing each other. He touches my cheeks, plays with my tousled hair. He squeezes my nose. He touches my absent love handles, just to make sure (I guess). He slips a finger down my tummy, almost reaching an erogenous zone. He looks at me, from top to bottom. His eyes drift out to the sea, return. He stares at me with his new, unbalanced eyes. He embraces my cheeks again, squeezes his lips onto my lips for a kiss. "I love you," he says. He embraces me fully now, his arms around my body, his tongue traveling deep into gay territory, he kisses, touches, embraces my mouth, my selfishness, my cynicism, my innocence, my stupidity, my soul...

Guess who...

Lucifer in the flesh --- that's how John Boehner, former Speaker of the American House of Representatives, a staunch Republican, called him during an event at Stanford University yesterday.

And Boehner continued: I have Democrat friends and Republican friends. I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life.

Twostep

Applause, applause: Piotr Urbaniak and the GREEN EYES

The first chapter of the Green Eyes, the chapter Michael didn't dare to include in his book because he feared it would "discomfort or even harm" some readers, will now appear in the German yearbook Mein Schwules Auge---the Germans supposedly being a hardier race when it comes to graphic sex. 

Anyhow: Piotr Urbaniak, the eponymous Polish-German artist, has just released eight illustrations to this chapter, and here is one of them: 

Beautiful, isn't it? Stay tuned!

Fragment, fragment? Okay:

A shadow enters my periphery of vision. Anybody who cares? Yes, a lank, blond, crew-cut guy. Perhaps he’s heard my screams and got interested. He’s shocked. No, he isn’t, he’s just curious. A tumescence builds in his trunks and develops its own life, the penis shaft seeking the path of lowest resistance. It’s pushing upward and outward like a trapped rodent until a solid erection has created an obscene-looking bulge. Crew-cut appears somewhat out-plussed by his private parts, he’s waiting until the erection is complete and then sheds his trunks. He has experience. His dick means serious business...   

What America has come to

This is real folks, this is not a bad dream

Find a caption

Well, us regulars would expect this to be a cloud of debris pushed out by an exploding supernova. But, no-no, this bubble was/is generated by the solar wind of a still-regular star at its center (only ten times the size of our own sun), and the whole thing is known as NGC 7635, what else. It's (only) 8,000 light years away:

French for beginners

(Hat tip: les diagonales du temps)

And...yet another GREEN EYES review:

Grab it, and plan to read it cover to cover immediately!, April 1, 2016

By Winthrop Smith

Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Green Eyes: an erotic novel (sort-of) (Kindle Edition)

I won't retell the plot, which earlier readers have already done so well, or introduce the characters. You know them: they are the gay men, and gay women you either have as friends, or wish you did. Fully articulated, never cardboard, caught up in a plot which the reader can't wait to follow to its conclusion. The hook of the writing immediately pulls the reader into the story, but the author brilliantly throws cultural references, quotations, Manhunt, sex, (hot, twenty-something, go for it, from the back, front, side, doggy style, grunting, panting...you get the idea) into the mix, not from a marketing suggestion, but, as with the entire book, because it is how life is lived. The reader smiles, laughs, leaks without being able to pause, unless the characters are taking a nap, or eating a meal themselves. If you loved Tales Of the City, you will love 'Green Eyes.'

"click"

A new GREEN EYES review

A new review of the Green Eyes is out, on GAY GUY READING, and it is FIVE STARS, yes, but that's not the appropriate way to label it. Here are two paragraphs:

"Wow! That was first reaction to reading this book, my second reaction was plain and simple holy shit! It is hard to find words to describe this book and make it justice because THIS BOOK IS HONESTLY LIKE NOTHING I'VE EVER READ BEFORE."

And:

"Green Eyes isn’t the light Sunday read it is the type of book you can read over and over again in time and discover new things each time. It is dark humor mixed with seriousness. IT HAS A COMPLEXITY TO IT THAT I DON'T THINK I EVER EXPERIENCED FROM AN AUTHOR OF TODAY!"

And here are a few more paragraphs:

"The language is very different, because you are right there inside John Lee’s mind every step of the way, and even though you are there quite a lot learning about John and his speculations about people, what is going on and why it is written in a way that it appears like an inner monologue and conversation. Which is quite impressive.

"In the beginning of the book you get the impression that the book is about a gay man slightly bit of a loner at the same time as he might be a tad depressed, odd ball who feels awkward around people and simply don’t get them. The longer and more you read and the more people John meet, and by the end there are quite a few people involved in this book, it more and more becomes a crime story with thriller feel. John is awkward, and I love him awkward.

"This book isn’t a book for the one who wants an easy read, this book took me quite some time to read and I had to read it in portions and read other things in between so I could ponder and think. This is a very different type of book, a book that has a lot of depth to it, touches about many different subjects---such as right and wrong in different aspect of life, what is love, depression, rape, abuse of power, sex, self-discovery and so on and so forth."


This is us, folks, us, the GREEN EYES! We are so happy!

"click"

A brief note on self-publishing

"I'm not a tourist!"

The self-publishing trend is usually linked to the internet. Along various causal chains, the internet is supposed to facilitate self-publishing, while simultaneously complicating the life of traditional publishing venues.

Yes, sure.

But when you walk through the ultimate tourist trap of Mougin, that historic town north of Cannes, you discover that the self-trend is more pervasive. At least, it includes visual art as well, at least in Mougin it does, even though the internet cannot be the culprit.

Rue du Docteur Buissard, Mougin

A few years ago, Mougin, like every tourist trap---and in particular the ones in Southern France---was packed with galleries of tourist-trap art: garish colors, palette-knife work (faster), sunsets, harlequins, clowns, harlequins, sailing boats, aggressively abstract (faster), Picasso imitations, and so on. That hasn't changed, the galleries are still there, but, in the meantime, in the space of a few years, whole colonies of live artists have entered the mix, exhibiting their own work in one-man/woman shops, outnumbering the galleries 10 to 1. Ten times as many garish colors, sunsets, clowns, aggressively-abstract, Picasso-style, the vieux village of Mougin has turned into an artist colony, literally.

Food for thought. Think this through: the internet cannot have anything to do with this...

Come to think of it

Chang drags us to Mougin, north of Cannes, where Picasso lived (and developed a major depression), and at the entrance to the main downtown (more correctly: uphill) section of the vieux village they've installed this statue:

"I am the Trojan Horse of contemporary art,"---it says.

Fragment, fragment...we were returning from Nice, from the quartier Ariane, where we did a little research for Michael's latest short story, fragment...(and true-true, except that Michael doesn't take the guy to Grasse)...fragment:


The story starts at Le Trayas Station. I live in Le Trayas, on the French Riviera, a settlement of 200 houses perched on the foothills of the Estérel range between Cannes and St. Raphael on the Mediterranean. Each morning I go for a walk, always the same, climbing down the hill, unlocking a pedestrian gate with code C 638 A, turning right on the Rue Charles Hechter (family of the French designer, rumor has it), walking past a gazeebo-style belvedère above the tracks littered with abandoned prophylactics, one more turn, and the view unfolds onto the western Cote d’Or, the train station smack in the middle and a white villa further down, pied-dans-l’eau, once belonging to Greta Garbo, rumor has it (everything is rumor here and they are always false). If God---who doesn’t exist---we have proof now---if God would exist---and if he were to create a Train Station with a View, it would be this one.

Although it has its own web site, the station doesn’t do much. Six local trains stop by per day, each delivering one passenger. The main structure is abandoned, including the ticket booth. An auxiliary building is also abandoned, and the outdoor restroom is occupied by an Arab, Muhammed.

Muhammed and I have a difficult relationship. We were on greeting terms initially, but I snubbed his various attempts to relate---I’m not peddling excuses but I could never get over the fact that somebody is living in a restroom---so he stopped addressing me and now averts his eyes. The situation is so awkward, I’m no longer making it all the way down to the station but turn around before I reach the level crossing at the tracks, where I would be in full view of this restroom and its occupant. 

Le Trayas Station

This particular morning, a train had just arrived, and the one passenger coming up the road was a young man, perhaps eighteen years old. He was apparently lost. Batting his eye lashes he asked whether he could ask a question, and then asked how he could get to Grasse---that’s an old town to the north of Cannes, seat of the vice-prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes and self-appointed World Capital of Fragrances. He would have to take an exam there, at 10 o’clock. Where he could find a bus station, perhaps. 

I shook my head. You have fifty minutes left, I said with a look at my watch. Getting to the bus station would take fifteen minutes, the bus is once per hour, you’d have to change buses, and so on. There’s no train for the next five hours. “How did you end up here?” I asked. He replied with a sheepish grin. 

I had a better look at him. He was pretty---regular features, good profile, full lips, deep, brown eyes, thick, tousled hair, and a sleepy seductiveness that was apparently irresistible.  

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll take you to Grasse.”

“Would you do that for me?” he replied. 

It's downhill from here, since this guy, it turns our, has a terrorist brother...

Unthinkable without Donald Trump

Donald Trump vs. Tristan Verran

We may have an idea where Donald Trump started. But we have no idea yet where it ends, where he and his ramifications will pan out and ebb away. Here, folks, from a post of one of our regular contributors, he's confronted with this woman, this would be unthinkable without THE DONALD...we quote (Tristan Verran speaking):

I think the word 'pretentious' has come to mean, 'I don't understand this, so I am going to try and mock it'. Take last night for example, I was having dinner with a gay pal and his best girlfriend who is from England. She demonstrated all of the usual camp affectations of a typically dull 'ex-pat wife'. I observed her as she posed in her rather unimaginative 'LBD', styled on the ENDLESS derivatives of the work of Coco Chanel, and I couldn't make out why she was being so offensive to me. She belittled my work ("teaching is SoooOOOOOOOOoo pointless these days", "why would ANYONE bother writing, it's so pretentious", "who cares about literature, it's so pretentious!"), then stated that, "art is just a load of pretentious bullshit!" I asked her what she meant by the term 'pretentious' and she replied, "it means people pretending to be something they're not." I thought about this, because I don't like to be bitchy, and I pointed out that even though she wore designer clothes; she could not hide the fact she's just another clueless idiot who spent her formative years getting felt up by the boys from the local estate before bagging a wallet in the city...

Let's keep up the good work!

GREEN EYES is Lambda Literary Award Finalist

It's like the Oscars, only less so. You get nominated in a specific category (ours was Gay Erotic Fiction), and there's a red-carpet award ceremony, held in New York City this year, on June 6, when the winners of each category are announced and fêted.

"click"

Here's a bit more about this year's awards:

The 28th Annual Lambda Literary Awards - or the "Lammys," as they are affectionately known - kick off another record-breaking year with today's announcement of the finalists. They were chosen from a record 933 submissions (up from 818 last year) from 321 publishers. Submissions came from major mainstream publishers and from independent presses, from both long-established and new LGBT publishers, as well as from emerging publish-on-demand technologies. Pioneer and Trustee Award honorees, the master of ceremonies, and presenters will be announced in April. The winners will be announced at a gala ceremony on Monday evening, June 6, 2016 in New York City.

"The Lambda Literary Awards were founded in 1989 to elevate the profile of LGBT literature," said Lambda Literary Board President, KG MacGregor. "In so doing, we also elevate the lives of those who find themselves authentically portrayed in our stories. It is with great pride that we come together each year to celebrate the excellent works of inspiring authors who have walked in our shoes."

The venue: Skirball Center, New York University

Now in their twenty-eighth year, the Lambda Literary Awards celebrate achievement in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) writing for books published in 2015. The awards ceremony on June 6, 2016, will be held at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. The red carpet and specially ticketed VIP Cocktail Reception will be held before the ceremony. The after-party, open to all with a general admission ticket, will follow at Le Poisson Rouge. For more information and to buy tickets, please visit www.lambdaliterary.org/awards.

The finalist

The view this morning

No, folk, you got it wrong, God doesn't exist